In the art of merchandising, shoppers are overwhelmed with advertisements encouraging them to purchase products. Retailers and packaged goods manufacturers bombard shoppers with information attempting to influence their choice of which product to purchase. It continues even after the product has been paid for at the point of sale.
Retailers have begun programming their point of sale systems with paperless coupons or direct discounts on specified items for their shoppers' club members. These programs are offered in an attempt to build store loyalty. Such discounts are usually paid for by the packaged goods manufacturer. Heavy coupon users take advantage of these discounted prices using their paper coupons for an additional savings.
Research indicates that shoppers going to a supermarket usually go with a prepared list. This same research states that most households in the United States use discount coupons each week when they shop. Most shoppers refer to the weekly flyer mailed to their home from their local supermarkets to learn about sale prices, other special offers and to clip "store" coupons. "Store" coupons are promotional consideration documents valid only in the store from which they are offered, whereas packaged goods manufacturers' coupons are valid at any retail store which carries the product and accepts coupons.
The handwritten shopping list is the most common form of reminder for shoppers Many shoppers organize their coupons in pocketbook type folders with dividers indicating the type of product, such as "dairy" or "frozen". Shopping lists usually are prepared using generic terms such as "cereal" unless a specific brand is wanted, or a brand corresponds to a discount coupon or special sale price.
Consumers receive thousands of coupons yearly in their mail, magazines and newspapers. To take advantage of the potential savings which coupons offer, a consumer must clip and organize them, remember the coupons he has and remember to take the coupons shopping with him, all on a timely basis since most coupons have an expiration date.
There are some products and services presently available to help consumers organize their coupons and to facilitate access to additional coupons. In-store exchange tables are provided in the store by retailers to allow shoppers to swap coupons they do not want for coupons they want to use, but these tables usually display low value and less desirable coupons. There are some coupon exchange coupon programs available via mail. They permit the consumer to exchange coupons he would ordinarily discard for coupons he wishes to use. Coupon organizing pouches and file folders are designed to help the consumer organize by type. Computerized coupon dispensers are placed in stores for consumers to obtain additional coupons.
None of the above is very helpful in simplifying the management of coupons for the consumer who must deal with literally hundreds of bits of paper in order to reap the considerable benefits of couponing. It is still a tedious, manual operation to cut, organize, file and include them with shopping lists, take the coupons to a store and match them to the products during the shopping process.
Moreover, the matching process in the store is time consuming even to the experienced coupon user. Current practices are awkward and inefficient, causing clutter in the consumer's home, pockets, purse and car, but more importantly, a deterrent to many potential couponers, resulting in lost opportunities for savings.
The competition among supermarkets for the consumer dollar is intense. To attract and maintain customer loyalty, supermarkets offer services such as check cashing privileges, video rentals, non-food products and film processing in addition to food products to keep the shopper coming back to their store. Supermarkets mail weekly advertisements to shoppers in their trading area, offering "sale" prices. Many offer double the face value on packaged goods manufacturers' discount coupons. Additional advertisements appear in newspapers, radio and television. The competition to get a shopper into their supermarket is fierce, and the supermarket wants him to return again and again.
The packaged goods manufacturers whose products are sold in these supermarkets are equally aggressive in trying to influence the customer to purchase their product. The packaged goods manufacturer, however, is not concerned with where his product is purchased. Packaged goods manufacturers also use direct mail, radio, televsion, newspapers and telemarketing, and most offer discount coupons, rebates and sweepstakes or games to influence the customer's choice. The combination of retailers' and packaged goods manufacturers' direct mail solicitations have been referred to by some as mail box clutter.
These types of promotional efforts by supermarkets and packaged goods manufacturers are primarily directed toward the consumer in his home. Once the consumer enters a supermarket, he is further inundated with products on display and signs everywhere. Signs called "shelf-talkers" protrude from shelves displaying the product, and coupons are made part of the label so that when the product is purchased the shopper is given an immediate discount. Instant coupon machines dispense coupons from the shelf holding the products and free-standing kiosks issue coupons. Other kiosks issue recipes promoting a product, provide directory assistance to locate products within the store, or allow the shopper to scan a product to verify the price.
Shopping carts have signs attached to them advertising products. Even the straps used to restrain children sitting in the seats have advertising on them. Video advertising, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,952 (Malec), are present on some shopping carts and beep and change advertisements when the shopping cart passes by an "advertised" product on a shelf. Malec also features "paperless/electronic" coupons which get applied to a customer's order at the point of sale. Calculator are provided on some shopping carts, with accompanying advertising, for shoppers to keep a running dollar total of their purchases.
Overhead, backlighted signs display advertisements. Television sets advertise as shoppers wait in line to check out their purchases. At the point of sale, checkout coupon dispensing machines dispense coupons based upon what has or has not been purchased. Mindrum et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212 discloses methods and apparatus to issue discount coupon at the point of sale after a customer has purchased his order, such coupons triggered by what items the customer actually purchased. Off et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,672, a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212, further discloses instructing the point of sale system to give an instant paperless discount rather than printing a paper coupon. Off et al. goes even further by disclosing a "negative" coupon issued to a customer based upon what he did not purchase.
The advertising and promotional activities on behalf of packaged goods manufacturers in supermarkets are usually implemented and managed by a third party vendor who is paid for these services by the packaged goods manufacturer and who subsequently pays a commission to the supermarket. These costs are passed along to the customer through higher product prices. As for customer shopping assistance, this has been made available in the form of calculators on shopping carts and product finder directory kiosks. Generally, other activities and devices are used solely to promote product sales and are self-serving for the packaged goods manufacturers, supermarkets and third party vendors alike.
Few, if any, customer assistance programs are presently available which enable a shopper to save time and money. A number of states require that each product offered for sale in a retail store have its own individual price tag or sticker. It is difficult for the shopper to check the prices marked on a product or displayed on a shelf label against the prices actually contained in the point of sale system. Hence shoppers can end up paying a different amount than the "sticker" price on the product. Price checking kiosks are available in some stores, but are inconvenient since a kiosk is not located in every aisle. The customer is required to bring a product to a kiosk for scanning and remember a shelf label price if the item is not individually marked or is marked incorrectly.
The effectiveness of all these advertising an promotional activities is difficult to measure. Supermarkets, for example, redeem billions of packaged goods manufacturers' discount coupons annually and don't know who used them. Supermarkets issue and redeem billions of their own discount coupons and they do not know who these customers are either. A supermarket may average as many as 25,000 shoppers passing through their point of sale aisles per week and they don't know which customer bought what, or what influenced him to purchase what he did buy. Nor do packaged goods manufacturers know what influenced the customer to buy their products.
At home, consumers attempt to organize their purchases for a shopping trip by creating shopping lists of products they need. This is quite prevalent for grocery shopping, and usually carries over to non-food purchasing needs as well. The process often consists of jotting down needed items on a blackboard or piece of paper at random times. This "preliminary" list is then edited into a "final" handwritten list for reference in the supermarket as a reminder of what to purchase. Supermarkets regularly attempt to entice customers to shop in their stores by offering sale prices. The shopping list is usually compared with the specials as advertised in flyers received at home and in newspaper advertisements. If the shopper uses discount coupons, these are usually brought to the supermarket with the list which may be marked to indicate items that have an accompanying coupon.
With the increased popularity of the personal computer, some consumers "type" their list of purchases. Software for shopping is available and is usually part of a "home" operations package, and may include other purchasing functions and budgeting activities.
Some supermarkets have attempted to assist their customers with home shopping systems whereby a customer could complete a grocery order form and transmit a facsimile of the form to the supermarket which would assemble the products and deliver it to the home. In spite of these isolated efforts, customers receive very little assistance in their shopping activities. Supermarkets present their products to their customers in elaborate displays, but fail to make it easy for the shopper to make an informed choice based upon value and comparison. Shoppers are also confused about which size product to purchase because the method which supermarkets use to display the unit price is, in many cases, purposely confusing.
In recent years more retailers are employing self-service operations. Humble et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,018 teaches an operator-unattended retailing system of consumer articles wherein a shopper processes his own purchases at the point of sale. Collins, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 4,929,819 teaches how an electronic module attachable to a shopping cart can facilitate self service point of sale operations by pre-scanning and accounting for selected products to be purchased during the shopping activity by the customer. Gogulski U.S. Pat. No. 4,071,740 discloses an automated shopping system having the equivalent of a point of sale system mounted on a shopping cart to process products transferred from the shelf to the shopping cart, thereby doing away with the need to scan the products at the point of sale and potentially eliminating the need for shelf labels and individual price labels on products.
Sutton U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,320 provides the only disclosure found to assist a customer by providing an electronic calculator which can be mounted on a shopping cart designed specifically to assist shoppers in totalling their purchases.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system which organizes and displays a customer's shopping list. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a shopping cart with a programmable display that shows advertisements in response to products in the store for which the customer shows an interest. It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a system which reminds a customer when a product selected for purchase corresponds to one of the customer's coupons.